From the 8th to the 11th of October 2009, Netaudio Berlin will be gathering the international netaudio community for a four-day music and conference festival in Berlin, under the title “East meets West”. 2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. We recall pictures of hands reaching out to pull people from both sides up onto the Berlin wall. The event will take place at Maria, a venue situated immediately on the former Berlin ‘death strip’ once dividing the city and the world into eastern and western hemispheres.

In recent years a netaudio landscape has emerged in the countries of Eastern Europe. Speakers, artists and netlabel managers from Eastern and Western Europe as well as from the USA are invited to find out more about the needs and possibilities, challenges and chances of netaudio under the various cultural frameworks and to discuss new opportunities for networking and collaboration across borders and cultures.

The musical focus lies on a selection of Berlin’ finest electronic music, namely, House, Techno and Minimal. However, many artists from the fields of Ambient, Noise, Dub, Drum’n’Bass, Pop, Triphop, Dubstep, Breakbeats, Drone, Hip Hop and Techdub will add to the varied musical program. Although the netaudio scene consists of artists mostly unknown to the broader public, many names have already earned international recognition. This is reflected in the lineup of the evenings programme, crowned by such illustrious figures as Pheek, D. Diggler, Erich Lesovsky, Marc Schneider, Goldwill, Tanith, Stereoshape, SCSI-9, Disrupt, Holger Flinsch, Marko Fürstenberg, and the Kraftfuttermischwerk. With over 100 participating artists spread over 3 nights, the netaudio festival gives a comprehensive insight into the various musical genres and brings netaudio music to life for participants and visitors. The day program includes numerous workshops and discussions with top experts as well as a film program, showcases, netaudio fair, and various contributions from other art forms.

As this year’s festival theme is ‘East meets West’ and it occurs just before the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall, we initiated a special project – the “Berlin Wall of Sound“, a sound map of the Berlin Wall. Considering the variety of sites such as streets, parks, rivers and open countryside that lie on it’s route it should be possible to make a varied sonic tapestry of the entire route. Everyone is invited to participate and upload recordings on our website! We would like this to be Netaudio Berlin’s gift to the people of Berlin, without whom the festival would not be possible.

The Berliner Crew has benefited from their experience during the previous Berlin Festival in 2007 and from their involvement with international partners in London, Moscow, Barcelona and Bologna. In addition to their ambition to further develop the netaudio scene worldwide, the organizers also hope to strengthen the position of Berlin as a hub between East and West, by integrating various netlabels from all parts of Europe. The organizers are sending a signal of exclamation to the netaudio community, especially in the countries of Eastern Europe that this will be the largest, most diverse and simply the most exciting Netaudio Festival of all time!

The Berlin Wall of Sound is an ongoing project and will be continuedafter the Netaudio Festival, so if you are in Berlin in the next weeksand months, take your field recorder and explore the sites of theformer berlin wall. Everybody i…s invited to con…tribute! Byparticipating you are creating a timeless document of contemporary andhistoric value – matching perfectly the spirit and sense of this year’sNetaudio Berlin Festival.